Back in the ’30s, the Avalon Casino Ballroom on Catalina Island was known to broadcast big bands via CBS radio, providing music and dance fans with spirited sounds at home. At the Virtual Avalon Ball this old-timey tradition will be conjured once again in the age of the coronavirus. Put together by the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles, the event, which as supposed to take place IRL on Catalina Island is now an online shindig featuring dancing, drinking and fashionable frolicking from another era to enjoy from the comfort of your own home. Beginning with a pre-show (2-3 p.m.) the festivities start with vintage drinks (“My Best Girl”- A Mary Pickford inspired Bloody Mary) followed by Avalon history with The Catalina Island Museum. Vintage fashion presentations will follow featuring the themes  “Going to the Beach – Vintage Swimwear & Catalina with Kristin Wojkowski” and  “Formal in the 30s with Menswear Historian Marc Chevalier.” Then there’s dance exhibitions with Charlie Decavita and partners Neal King Groothuis & Emily DeWan, Isabella Sanders Miller & Steve Brown and Susan & Kurt Reisser, and the vintage radio broadcast with musical entertainment by Dean Mora, Sunny Hilden & Ray Frisby, Damon Kirsche, Jim McMillen, Kayre Morrison, Geoff Nudell, Mary Stanford and Roy Wiegand. Mary Pickford and Catalina Island vintage film footage from historian Angie Aisbet Schneider will backdrop the affair.

Sat., May 16, 2-5 p.m. on Zoom. $10 fee for the code goes to the musicians. Get it here.

 

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